actually the primary reason they won was that they were lucky enough to have had an all-time great level player amongst a team full of fringe level players, and who's second best player wasn't among the top 10 players at his position in the league.

His cast was far better than you're giving them credit for. But we don't even need to go over subjective crap about how they look on paper. Just remember that they were a top 2 rebounding team and a top 4 defensive team. Are you going to pretend that doesn't matter?

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he only played 19 minutes because thats all he was worth. okur shot a disgusting 34% from downtown. garrity was automatic, averaged 11 points, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 2 3 pointers per contest

He only played 19 minutes because Detroit was very deep. Garrity could shoot 3s, but would I take that at the expense of defense and rebounding at the power forward position? Absolutely not as evidenced by Orlando's terrible defense and rebounding.

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at all your comments. vaughn was easily better than atkins, who shot the ball more times than he scored points.

Atkins had a terrible shooting season, but Vaughn could never shoot anyway. Atkins started quite a bit during his career, including the previous year on a 50 win Piston team. Vaughn was lucky to crack a team's rotation even as a back up.

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in '99 he was 17th, 2 spots higher than he was '07

17th is reasonable for '99, but I'll always be laughing at this ridiculous horseshit for '07. The funniest thing is you can't completely hide behind team success without context because you have Wade, Brand and Garnett over Kobe in 2007. Then you have a bunch of other names that are downright comical beginning with Billups,

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he wasn't anywhere near the best player in the league, dwyane wade was clearly in another stratosphere.

What a joke. Kobe was in a different stratosphere than Wade if anything. It was obvious to myself and pretty much everyone else including some of Wade's veteran teammates that Kobe was better. He was much more skilled and his game was much more well rounded than Wade. Wade was the better slasher and more relentless going to the basket, but that's about it. Kobe was a much better shooter and much better in the post, and all of this made Kobe a much better scorer. Kobe outscored Wade 35 ppg to 27 ppg, and while Wade held a nice FG% advantage of 49.5% to 45%, Kobe made 2 more threes per game, so Wade's TS% edge was only 58.3% to 55.9%. Plus, Kobe did this without anyone to take pressure off of them, while Wade clearly seemed to benefit from Shaq's presence since he shot 51.7% with him and just 44.7% without him in a significant sample size of 21 games.

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lol the best scorer in the league does not become a "decoy" in the playoffs.

at this trash. Kobe wasn't going to outscore the Suns by himself, both Kobe and Phil knew this. He had averaged 42.5 ppg vs them during the season, but the Lakers had gone 1-3 in those games. Changing Kobe's role and approach made sense and nearly resulted in the upset. He still put up 28/6/5, 50 FG%, but his teammates were playing to their full potential as well.

He did have better defensive seasons, but he was still better than almost any star perimeter player.

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i can name 2. dwyane wade, allen iverson.

Based on what? Wade's Heat went just 10-11 when he played and Shaq didn't. And he still had a better cast than Kobe.

All the evidence suggest that '06 Wade couldn't have come close to 45 wins with the '06 Lakers. Probably finishes under .500 and misses the playoffs.

Iverson? His team went 38-44 in the East and missed the playoffs. That's the best case scenario in the West, but probably a bit worse. Kobe did what Iverson did better than he did, which was volume scorer, while being the more efficient, versatile and consistent scorer, and a more well rounded player.

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there is no argument for putting bryant anywhere near the top 10, let alone top 2 in 2007. he had a worse regular season, and an even worse playoff series in which once again, was almost outplayed by lamar odom who stepped up alot more. the lakers had a much higher pace than they did the previous year, and he simply could not capitalize.

There is no argument for Kobe being any less than top 2, and he's the correct choice for best player.

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yeh lebron was better in '09, as was kobe. the other better player was dwight howard.

Kobe had a legitimate case over Wade in '09, so I can't take issue with you choosing Kobe.

As far as Dwight, he did have a great year, I've pointed out that playoff run in a similar way when some have tried to exclude Dwight from the top 5 players that year. But he was raw offensively, and we saw how he could be contained vs Boston and LA. That held him back from the level of Lebron, Wade and Kobe who were on a different level than everyone else.

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finley was top 23, nash was top 19, and fifth best point guard.

I have Finley lower and Nash higher at top 14. Marbury, Francis and Payton are all right behind him, but I don't see any as having a good case since Nash was clearly the best offensive player of the 4, and none were good enough defensively at that point to make up for it.

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what about dirk having a better regular season, and then a better playoff. these facts clearly point out that dirk was the better player.

at this. Do you deny that T-Mac was a better scorer than Dirk and more of an all around player in '03?

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stackhouse contributed much more and won just as many games with less talent the previous season.

And lost in the second round. Stackhouse was more skilled and talented overall, but Rip was more efficient, smarter and more of a team player. Stackhouse shot a terrible 32% in the '02 playoffs.

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robinson was no more than a body, and williamson was a big man who could not rebound to save his life, was pathetic without the ball, and a black hole with it.

Robinson's ability to shoot 3s as a 6'10" power forward as well as his defense made him valuable. Corliss Williamson wasn't a big man, he was playing small forward and a very nice scorer to have as a complementary player.

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yao played like trash, gooden stepped up huge. no need for stat sheets, go watch the games and you will find these things out.

Yao played well, though he struggled with foul trouble. Gooden played well, but still didn't have the impact Yao did. Aside from Yao producing much more offensively, you also had to put a lot more effort into defending him than Gooden, and he was much more of a presence and made a much bigger impact defensively.

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howard wasn't even in the top 5, and nowhere near lebron james.

What a joke. Howard made a group of poor defenders a top 3 defensive team, averaged 14 rpg and still put up 23 ppg on 59%. He had no peers defensively, and had developed a very nice skill set and become comfortable with his back to the basket to complement his athleticism.

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who cares if they put up the same stats, its not all about stats, which is why variations occur from year to year.

I said nothing about stats. I said PLAY at a comparable level, of course, that means stats to you, but the game is much more than that to me.

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this is just plain filth logic. kobe is 2nd in 2000, this is fact. every year there are different players who step up and play big. see 2002 kobe was better than 2000 kobe, yet he is ranked 3rd because tim duncan stepped up and was better than him, yet in 2000 nobody stepped up to the level that duncan showed in 2002. make sense? 2006 shaq was infact the 16th best player in the league and didn't have anywhere near the impact 2000 kobe had.

You're correct that both Duncan and Kobe were better in 2002 than their 2000 selves, but the gap for Kobe was much bigger. Duncan in 2000 was as good as he was in almost any other year. Kobe wasn't even in the same tier as him yet.

As for 2006 Shaq vs 2000 Kobe, your claim that Kobe made a bigger impact is laughable, especially since we conveniently have solid sample sizes that strongly suggest otherwise. The 2000 Lakers went 12-4 without Kobe, and 12-3 when Shaq played in those games. The 2006 Heat went just 10-13 without Shaq, and 10-11 when Wade played in those games.

Not that the backup excuse would make up for such a massive disparity in the first place, but even that helps Shaq's argument. The Heat had that poor record despite having an excellent backup in Alonzo Mourning who was still one of the best defensive players in the game and averaged 12/9 on 58% with 4 bpg as a starter. The Lakers only had Derek Fisher to fill in as a starting guard, and this was before Fisher was even a good shooter. Fisher shot under 35% for the entire 2000 season.

2006 Shaq was a much more savvy and team-oriented player. He was also still probably the biggest mismatch in the game and received far more defensive attention than Kobe. We saw what happened when even a great frontcourt like the Pistons guarded him 1 on 1, he averaged 22/11 with 2.3 bpg on 66%, which may have influenced the Mavs to make him the focus of their defense until game 5. For the season, he still put up 20/9/2/2 on 60% in just 31 mpg.